On Oct. 25, my 88-year-old ill father had to wait 17 hours in a hospital bed in the emergency area admittance to be told the results of his health condition. There were no support personnel there to help my father use the urinal so my brother and I became that person.

On a previous emergency, my father had to wait 15 hours to be admitted. While he waited in line to be assessed by a doctor, my mother asked a paramedic, who has to wait with their admittance until seen by a doctor, “What would happen if someone in our community was having a heart attack and you are all here?” He replied regretfully, “They would die.”

I wish to express my anger and disgust at the headline and article. Josie Glenn’s death was treated as an opportunity for the description of salacious details concerning a massage parlour in London, not as the crime that it is. The article should have been put in the shredder.

The real story was that a young woman was murdered. The important background details concerning this murdered woman were that she had a family and friends who loved her, not where she worked.

November is Shine the Light on Woman Abuse Month. I sincerely hope The Free Press will publish articles about the campaign and end the month with knowledge that newspaper staff can put to good use in the future.

Pennie Jevnikar

London

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Money rules

If we live in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. or France, we believe we are living in a democratic country. The election of a populist president in the U.S. has raised questions about the methods that are used to elect our leaders.

There is a problem if we allow only two main parties to participate in democracy. In the U.S., it is legal for the rich and big corporations to buy these parties with large contributions. In addition, candidates are preselected for you by elites in so-called primaries. Citizens are asked to vote for these selected politicians. Once elected, these politicians work for those who supported them financially and not for those who voted.

We have called this democracy for the last 200 years. I am glad that we don’t follow this type of democracy in Canada, and we have more than two major parties with limited financial support from elites.

George Cherian

London

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Out of touch

Regarding the article 3.3% tax jump tied to wage hike (Nov. 1).

So the 2.9 per cent pre-­approved tax increase is not enough for the city mis-­managers and the increase could go as high as 3.3 per cent in 2018. As the inflation rate is 1.6 per cent (hence the fixed income increase), the increase in the minimum wage is used as an excuse for the shortfall.

Could it be that this incompetent and irresponsible administration is out touch with the real world? Contrary to the successful business world that fine tunes its workforce to be efficient and productive, the city is constantly looking at ways to expand its workforce and waste tax dollars, oblivious to the fact that they are taking food off the table of those on fixed income.

Bus rapid transit, the useless Harris Park pavilion, the implementation of the tree protection bylaw, expensive consultant fees and studies, expensive labour-intensive concrete islands in the centre of roads that will require perpetual maintenance are proof as to why the city fails to stay within its means.

The next election cannot come too soon.

Frank Pontarelli

London

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Broken promises

It has been about two years since the Trudeau Liberals were swept in to power.

To be fair, we have improved child benefits, Syrian refugees and merit-based senate appointments. However, we have seen so many displays of bungling, ineptitude, fiscal recklessness and unfulfilled and broken promises. Of the 226 promises made, 58 have been achieved, 59 not started, 73 in progress and 36 broken. These according to the online Trudeau Meter.

Perhaps it’s time for this out-of-touch, infatuated globe-trotter (on our money) to steal away from the cameras and spend more time on the nation’s business. We can’t afford this to go on much longer.

Mind you, he still has nice hair.

Dennis Lee

London

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Beal critic wrong

It is with sadness that I read Beal cancels ‘disrespectful’ production of The Wiz (Oct 14) as my wife and I have enjoyed all of the Beal Players’ productions over the past 10 years

Recently many theatre companies have thankfully embraced the concept of “colour-blind casting” to demonstrate that art transcends issues of race. The Stratford Festival, in particular, has embraced this practice. A great play or musical is only as strong as its text or libretto; as Shakespeare wrote, “the play’s the thing,” not necessarily the casting.

Alexandra Kane, who raised the initial objection to the Beal production, suggests a “white-washed production” “teaches kids that disrespecting a culture is fun.” I believe the colour-blind casting of The Wiz had no such intention; on the contrary, the goal was to do just the opposite — to show that people of all races may celebrate the joy of African-American culture.

Dennis Johns

London

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Pandering PM

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland may need to check the English dictionary after her statement that capitulation is not a negotiating strategy, as she responded to former prime minister Stephen Harper’s rebuke of the Liberal party for including Mexico and social justice issues in the NAFTA negotiations.

Capitulation, or the act of surrendering, has nothing to do with good business practices. You can’t negotiate with items that are of no interest to your counterpart.

Justin Trudeau’s humanistic and socialistic attitudes will be the death of Canada’s relationship with our most needed trading partner and combat ally.

Trudeau’s pandering to every griping special-interest group, combined with his globalist aspirations, won’t work with the politically incorrect Donald Trump. Trudeau’s fear of making enemies is a national hindrance as political leader, such as he is.

Brock Turner

Chatham

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Cut consultants

Regarding the article $136K for smart traffic plan (Oct. 31).

It seems we don’t have any qualified staff at city hall. Once again council is hiring consultants, this time for a solution to traffic light systems. Surely there must be some managers in traffic who can take on this project without spending more money.

The money that would have been spent on consultants could then be used for the necessary increase to the minimum wage. To break it down, someone making $12 an hour on a 40-hour week, after deductions, takes home $402. Try living on that.

Both a reduction in hiring consultants and increase in minimum wage are long overdue.

Lesley Classic

London

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Adaptive cruise control exists

Regarding the letter Cruise toward safety (Oct. 31).

Ken Faust suggests vehicles need cruise controls that adapt to the speed of the vehicle ahead. This is standard practice on most new vehicle models.

My wife’s 2016 automobile has adaptive cruise control that automatically clones the speed of the approached vehicle ahead and maintains a specific safe distance between vehicles applying the brakes if required without driver intervention.

The vehicle will automatically resume a higher set cruise speed when the driver pulls out to pass the vehicle ahead.

Harvey Easton

Port Stanley

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Distorted facts

I had a chilling feeling looking at the big picture of an elderly man in the photograph captioned Day of victims (Oct. 31).

The man’s eyes met mine with passionate sorrow in their mighty grief. He crossed himself, as the caption of the picture said, to commemorate “the thousands of victims of the Soviet regime.”

Really? As I know history, there were millions of innocent victims of Stalin’s regime, not thousands.

That tyrannical system slew more political enemies and their own people than any other ideology in human history.

In the age of cyber attacks, when millions of Twitter and Facebook accounts are under constant influence of hidden propaganda of ballyhooing, do we need this alt-left distortion? The expert on Stalin’s victims, Anne Applebaum, in her newest book Red Famine would be a good antidote to those who think otherwise.

Jaroslaw Moczarski

London

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Shape priorities

With an election coming next June, all Ontarians will gradually tune into what is happening with the Ontario government, and ask themselves: “Which provincial responsibilities are priorities for me?”

We will see Ontario’s 20 political parties selling their own set of priorities to voters, developed top-down, often quite wrong about what is important to voters.

The Consensus Ontario Association was formed in 2016 to zero in on what the actual priorities of Ontarians are. Once we have defined your provincial priorities, we will develop and publicize policies to implement your priorities. Each year these may change, depending on your priorities. We believe that is how our system of representative democracy should operate.

As Consensus Ontario surveys ridings across Ontario this winter, help us by taking the time to complete the anonymous survey.

Brad Harness

Interim leader

Consensus Ontario

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No soapbox please

Regarding the article Violence returns with protest (Oct. 30).

As a Muslim, I was disgusted and alarmed to read The Free Press’s coverage of Pegida’s latest attempt to bully local politicians for calling the group what they are, an Islamophobic hate group.

Pegida’s message of hate may have been drowned out by rain and counter-protesters during the rally, but The Free Press did a fine job of restoring their voice and making them look sympathetic to the public. The newspaper calls them “anti-Islamist” when it should have called them “anti-Muslim” because that is exactly what they are.

Hate speech is a criminal offence. Stop giving hate groups a soapbox.

Iraj Gardner

Etobicoke

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Gridlocked city

Successfully run cities flourish when city staff, councillors and residents work together to develop strong fiscal policies and dynamic master plans while maintaining a firm grip on development and urban sprawl.

For example, London is years behind with our road system. Traffic is gridlocked morning, noon and night. Good roadways to newly developed lands don’t materialize until traffic jams cry out for road upgrading, and then we have the construction to contend with.

Former Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion was asked to consult when rapid transit was the idea du jour. Council should have asked McCallion to develop a sound business plan to bring prosperity back to London.

The city should organize a summit bringing together taxpayers, business owners, city staff, councillors and guest speakers to gather ideas, wants and needs that could be a framework to move this city forward. This was done in Burlington and I was privileged to attend.

Susan Lindsay

London

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Trucks too close

Regarding the horrific crash on Highway 400, I feel obligated to mention a rule that is being broken by many truckers on the road today. To my knowledge, commercial vehicles should travel at least 200 feet apart on highways. I many times see them so close together that a normal car would not fit between them. I have a feeling that this is a major problem with all these rear-ending accidents lately. If the OPP is serous about their crackdown on truckers, this would be a good place to start

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